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Saturday, 29 October 2011

Stars of the Sea in AP&Q

A few days ago I gto my copy of Australian Patchwork & Quilting Vol 20 No11, which includes Stars of the Sea as a project.

I don't have brilliant photos of it - I only had about half an hour in which to take them before taking it to the post office, the sun was in the wrong spot to use my usual wall, my good camera had a flat battery (so I used the old one, which for some reason was also set on a very low resolution), I couldn't find a wall big enough for it to hang completely flat, and the best option didn't have room for me to stand far enough back to take a good straight-on image! However, I do have some nice detail images, and some progress photos, and will photograph it properly when I get it back in a week's time.

(image from AP&Q)﻿

I absolutely love this quilt; I love the colours, and the effect of the blocks, and am thrilled with the border quilting - the centre quilting is just average, but it doesn't detract from the rest, so that's ok.

I used nine different colourings of the same star block, using a palette of seven aqua fabrics in varying tones and shades, plus a few extra aquas for the borders and binding. Ideally the border and binding fabrics would ahve been selected from those used in the centre, but I dind't have enough - and I decided to add the aqua borders after piecing the top (in fact, I'd actually sandwiched it without them, then changed my mind!).

These blocks are all shown prior to quilting

I did photograph one block in detail after quilting; I quilted the stars with silver metallic thread; each star in a different pattern:

A section of the border (looking at the photos again, I can't wait to do more quilting like this!):

I used a bowl and Hera marker to mark the scallops and the feather spines - it was quick and easy (practically no pre-planning required) and left no marks to remove later! The feathers radiate form the corners, and 'meet' in the centres of the sides - I just kept adding 'another bowl' on either side until the gap between them was smaller than 2 bowls

I made my own template for the snowflakes (used in the corner scallops, and scattered among the loops in the background of the star blocks), but had difficulty removing the blue pounce. The blue water-soluble clover marker wasn't that keen on coming out, either.

This shows the quilting over the whole quilt - the only way I could get the whole thing in:

And the (rather sad) best I could do straight-on (admittedly it is a whopping 100 x 92in, king-size quilt!):

Stars of the Sea will be hanging in the Express Publications stand at the Festival of Quilts in Adelaide next weekend.

About Me

I am 40, married to Simon, and mummy to James (12) and Eleanor (11). I design all my own quilts, have produced several patterns and have been regular contributor to Australian quilting magazines. My favourite part of the process is the quilting (on a Bernina 820), but I enjoy every bit of it. Please drop in and say hello; each and every comment is appreciated and I'm happy to answer your questions, although I quilt a little less frequently these days.